Another kid behind him yelled “He’s making gun motions, send him to juvie!” According to AWR Hawkins, that kid had been bullying Ethan Chaplin, the kid who was twirling the pencil.

And the idiots in charge of the school took the bullying to an entire new level.

The school suspended him. It ordered him to undergo both a psychological and a physiological examination. The boy’s father says his seventh-grader son was stripped and had to give blood samples and urine samples for drug testing. He passed out during the examination. Four hours after that, a social worker spoke with the boy for all of five minutes and cleared him of doing anything wrong.

When he went back to school, the principal reportedly followed him around all day.

That boy was abused by his own school. The authorities over him terrorized him. They bullied him. All just for twirling a pencil in his hand.

As has become typical in these cases, Superintendent Charles Maranzano defends the indefensible actions of those who work for him:

“We never know what’s percolating in the minds of children,” he told the news station. “And when they demonstrate behaviors that raise red flags, we must do our duty.”

Twirling a pencil is about a billion miles away from going on a murder spree.

It’s time to go Al Armendariaz on these people and make examples of them to deter this kind of abusive behavior. Our government is already doing that to citizens and has been for years. It’s time to turn the tables. The super needs to be sued personally, as does every other teacher and official involved. They’re not fit to be around children.

Bryan Preston has been a leading conservative blogger and opinionator since founding his first blog in 2001. Bryan is a military veteran, worked for NASA, was a founding blogger and producer at Hot Air, was producer of the Laura Ingraham Show and, most recently before joining PJM, was Communications Director of the Republican Party of Texas.

I agree with suing everyone concerned, personally. But also you can Alinsky their system.

“We never know what’s percolating in the minds of children,” he told the news station. “And when they demonstrate behaviors that raise red flags, we must do our duty.”

Fine, while a higher percentage than the general public of children of teachers and administrators are sent to private schools because they know what public schools are like; there is a percentage of teachers and administrators who do have kids in the schools.

Accuse the children of teachers and administrators of "threatening gestures", bullying, Habeas Mabeas, and Leering and Sleering with Felonious Intent to Creep and Crawl. [I've used that last bit on drunks when I was still a Peace Officer as examples of charges I could bring if they did not quietly move along. It always worked.] Either they are going to get the same treatment, in which case you want to bet that the School District will rethink its policies; or they are going to give them differential treatment. In which case, you have a possible 42 USC 1983 suit for unequal treatment under color of law. One advantage is that those civil rights suits go against everyone involved AND the institution, AND there is no sovereign immunity defense allowed. Consult a lawyer, preferably one from outside the local jurisdiction so that they are not connected with or subject to intimidation by that jurisdiction. Also, it is best if they are genetically related to a Great White Shark.

“We never know what’s percolating in the minds of children,” he told the news station. “And when they demonstrate behaviors that raise red flags, we must do our duty.”

We should follow up with this: "We never know what's percolating in the minds of school officials," we should tell the news stations. "And when they demonstrate behaviors that raise red flags, we must do our duty"

I am going to post this comment until someone does something about it.

The PJ Media site is not working, worse it is working erratically. Comments sections disappear, articles disappear then appear again, comments are posted once and then appear repeated.

I am an unemployed systems person with more than 30 years of actual EXPERIENCE and I can tell either this site is being sabotaged from the inside or in the hands of a very incapable administrator. I am available to work and my systems actually work without a hint of a problem. Some of them have been working since the 90's without ONE crash or inconvenient minor or major.

Try to DO SOMETHING ABOUT it. Of course you can give a speech or do something Liberal about it like saying "this is the price of freedom"

To Ms Betsey: I do know children of teachers. They are not bullies. Usually they are embarassed to be connected to their parent. Imagine having your mom around all day, ready and waiting to embarass you by, you know, breathing, wearing mis-matching clothes, remembering out loud something you did embarassing as a child.

Second, my father was bullied at his school, when he was a child. His father was a shop foreman. The local union official would get on the air and rail about him by name. The children of union officials would harass my dad about things his dad did- like, you know, insist on a day's work for a day's pay. In case you were wondering, it made my dad a passionate partisan for standing up for the little guy, not a thug in training.

I would say it's Long Past Time to be doing this and there should be an organization similar to FIRE created to facilitate and assist. These little tin-pot dictators in k-12 "academe" have shown themselves to be every bit as much the jack-booted fascists as those in "higher education". And with BOEs being as weak, ineffectual and in fear of litigations, they really have no supervision or authority above them. ( I know. I served 8 years on a local BOE and battled entrenched administrators and elitist teachers' power cliques the entire time.)

I have lost faith in the system -- not just the public educational system, the public legal system, and the political system. You know what happens when too many people in a nation get to the point where I am?

After almost 10 years of nonsense at the hands of bullies and the school administration, the only time I was able to get any relief was when I told the principle that if he didn't straighten the nonsense out to my satisfaction and no one else's, by the end of the day, I was going to sue him for punitive damages.

I had an apology within an hour from the ringleader.

Within a year I was suspended and forced into a crap diagnosis of ADHD and onto medication because I fought back when jumped by the same group. 6 months later I went to college with a smile on face and a skip in my step. You do the math on that one.

Cross-posted at Insty:

It's been long past time 20 years ago. It's only gotten worse. Public schools should be abolished, razed, and salted over, cursed forever.

I love that the Reynolds / Smith team takes this seriously, and keeps on it, because this is a massive problem. And it didn't just happen overnight

I was disciplined by teachers and school administrators several times back when I was in school, but I can only recall one incident when I believe they actually bullied me.

It was in sixth grade, and many of the sixth-grade students had been volunteered to sing in a combined choir (pop stuff -- "Mary Poppins" and "The Sound of Music" were very popular at the time). One of the sixth-grade teachers was a frustrated musician and this was her big outlet. It was supposed to be voluntary.

Well, a buddy of mine and I decided we didn't like it, and told our teacher we wanted to quit. (Incidentally, he was the only male teacher at the school.) He and the other teacher/choir director held both of us after school, and for the next hour or so, there simply is no better term to use: they bullied us back into the choir. Lots of talk about failing us on our "arts" grade and how that reflects on our "permanent record" and migod, aren't even ashamed of ourselves for not wanting to participate in such a glorious event, blah blah. We weren't free to leave, and we weren't free to say 'no'.

I doubt that the incident did me any permanent harm, but it was traumatic at the time. In those days, parents more or less went along with teachers' decisions, so I knew there was no redress. My buddy and I were on our own.

In some ways, I think what they did to me was unintentionally instructive. I already knew kids could be real $#!^s, but now I understood clearly that so can adults.

For the most part, I do think parents shelter their kids way too much. Into each life a little rain must fall, and the sooner you learn that, the better. Parent's can't go around making the world perfect for their perfect little replicas.

However, in this recent NJ case, the administration should be grabbed by the loose flesh and shaken like a martini.(show less)

I agree wholeheartedly! Something I have noticed is that these stupid, rights abusing scenarios are rarely instigated by the child's teacher. They are most often imposed by an "administrator". Perhaps there are too many "administrators" in our school systems. Perhaps we could get two birds with one stone; encourage greater respect for the constitutional rights of our kids, and save money, by getting rid of these bureaucrats.